“Would you believe it was out of the goodness of our hearts?”
“No.”
“No?” Coren blinked in mock astonishment. “No? How very awkward. I take it then you have little faith in human nature. How very sad.” The smirk on his face was anything but sad as he held up a hand to his hair and said, “But how would you feel about the nature of elves?”
And he brushed back his hair to reveal perfectly pointed ears.
The silence that fell could have been cut with a knife, and it was a span of several moments before any sound penetrated it, and that was the hushed sweep of Errance’s inhaled breath.
“You’re no elf,” he said.
Tisking, Coren shook his head. “Further proof of your distrust of humankind. And also,” he tipped his head to the side, one good eye twinkling, “a singular ideal of what elves are supposed to be. Has it occurred to you that you don’t fit the ideal either?”
“Elves don’t grow beards,” Errance retorted, blatantly ignoring the question.
Coren stroked the tuft of hair on his chin sadly. “You’re right. They don’t. I had to glue mine on. For you, fellow elf, and only for you—counting your odd troop of friends who I trust merely on our race’s merit of keen insight—I will show the elf behind the smuggler.”
With a painful wince, he peeled the patch off, leaving a bright red mark on his chin. Then he flipped up the eye patch, revealing a perfectly healthy and identical green eye. “Here you are,” he said merrily. “Not so frightening now, am I? Short hair, granted, and shirtless at the moment, but last I knew these conditions didn’t disqualify me from my race?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Tellie, very shocked. She exchanged a quick look of amazement with both Tryss and Kelm, but when she looked to Errance, his face could have been carved from rock.
“I never saw you in Aselvia,” he said as if it was the most condemning, deciding verdict in the world.
“Of course you didn’t! I’m only in my fifties, and you…you left Aselvia some seventy years ago…a few days past the exact date if I’m not mistaken.”
There might have been no one else in the world—no gasp of the children, no soft cry from Tryss, no start from Zizain. It was only the two elves in the room and the heavy stillness that hung between them.
Coren’s shoulders rose and fell in one deep rush of breath. “I know it’s you, Errance. How could I not know? Do you think your portrait no longer graces Aselvia’s halls? That stories are not still told of your merry youth? That—” His voice caught, struggling on what he might say next, what impossible answers it might bring, and in those moments, the stunned reverence in his face shone so beautiful that his elven blood was undeniable. “Brights,” he breathed, “Everyone thinks you’re dead. What happened?”
But there was no answer. Errance sat there, unmoving, unblinking, unfeeling. Whatever walls he possessed had risen to a greater density than ever before. As Tellie watched him, anxious and hopeful for any sign of the elf prince Coren spoke of, she thought he nearly faded, as if withdrawing his spirit nearly withdrew his body as well. It was a strange thought, and when she blinked, he was just sitting there like any person might, except unusually obstinate and reclusive.
“I can explain.” The words slipped out of her mouth before she had quite thought about them.
Across the room, Tryss stiffened. “Tellie, I don’t know…” She glanced at Coren. “Not to seem rude, but even if you’re an elf and even though you’ve helped us, I don’t think we have reason enough to trust you…”
Coren didn’t seem to hear or care. His gaze was locked with Errance’s in some silent duel.
The vision again flashed through Tellie’s mind, the vision of the bright white warrior leaping to their aid. The radiant light that shone from him had been so pure, pure as moonlight. At that thought, she recalled something else.
With a deep breath, she reached up and undid the necklace from her neck. Clenching the strand hard in her hand, she held out the moon medallion. Streams of light gathered in a starburst around the pendant so that the entire room brightened, drawing every eye to its heart. Even if this Coren was just a common pirate, elf and all, surely he wouldn’t be such a fool as to grab it right in front of Errance.
To her satisfaction, Coren choked on his own swallow. He hacked and coughed for a bit, before finally gaining control of himself. “Where did you get that?” he gasped
“Oh, do you know it?” Tellie said innocently, turning it on her finger as if she didn’t notice anything marvelous.
“I could not claim to be an elf if I didn’t know it,” the captain breathed, transfixed by the shining necklace. “King Rendar—last I knew it was missing. By all that is sacred, I thought you were just an ordinary girl—”
“Why, thank you.”
“—why do you carry something so revered as the moon medallion? It has been lost for decades. Is that really the real thing?”
“It waxes and wanes with the moon,” she replied. “If you don’t believe me, just look at it tomorrow.”
“But why?” he demanded. “Why do you have it?” He looked at Errance as he asked, perhaps expecting the answer from him.
Her mouth opened before she realized her answer seemed laughable. As he said, she was just an ordinary girl. Could she expect him to believe that Rendar would have chosen her for such a task? “Errance is having me carry it for now,” she said, ignoring the rest of the questions. “Touch it, please. Just a touch.”
With a confused frown towards Errance, Coren stretched out his fingers and brushed the surface of the treasure. It remained bright as ever, maybe it even brightened.
Tellie stared at it, then at him. “We can trust him,” she said. Her voice carried such confidence that everyone believed her, except perhaps Errance. She tucked the medallion away, and then, ignoring the ever darkening shadow upon the prince’s face, addressed Coren.
“It was a fake death, you see. Instead, the Darkness took him to Tertorem, if you’ve heard of that. Evil dark place east of here, behind those awful mountains? Anyway, he’s been trying to extract the secrets of the Higher World from him, or something like that.” The tale felt strange on her tongue, the words utterly inadequate to express the truth.
But Coren accepted it in stride. “Brights,” he hissed again. “It’s the obvious thing for the Darkness to do, why was his death not questioned, why did they never try to breech Tertorem—” His voice cut off. “They did,” he said, rather sadly and to himself. “They tried and failed. But I am sure they did not know he was alive within, or else they would never have stopped trying.” Eyes gleaming, he looked to Errance. “So you’ve escaped. How? After all this time, how?”
“The sewers were my idea,” Kelm offered.
“We nearly drowned in the river,” Tellie recalled with a shiver.
“I met them in the forest,” Tryss said.
“I tripped him in the street,” Zizain added helpfully.
“Thank you, everything is perfectly clear now,” Coren said, rolling his eyes. He swiveled to face Errance head on and leaned forward. “I want to hear it from you. What happened? How did you escape?”
No answer came. Throughout the conversation, the presence of Errance had slipped further and further away. His face was set, his gaze nailed to an empty corner of the house. There was no sign of any awareness of them, either of their discussion or their sudden silence and expectation.
And then his eyes turned with a snap and met Coren’s square. The force of it might have been a slap for the jolt the captain gave.
“Why,” Errance said, “would I tell you anything?”
The jovial energy that laced Coren’s every word, every movement, wilted under the winter frost in the voice. “I…I thought…”
“You thought?” Errance’s smile was like a knife unsheathing, and the room darkened as a cloud passed over the sun. “Tellie is an impulsive child, quick to trust. If I am the prince of Aselvia, as you say, and I have spent my last seventy ye
ars amongst demons whose sole purpose was to break me to their will—you thought I might trust you?”
Coren was silent. Everyone else was silent. The silence held the room in a tight-fisted grip, squeezing out air for breath, for thought, for hope.
When Coren spoke again, his voice was low and solemn. “I would have sworn it impossible, but I see with my own eyes the prince of Aselvia before me. The mystery of how or why does not matter, only this. I do not ask you to trust me, but I ask you to believe that I will do whatever I can to see you safely home to Aselvia, for I swear it upon the Truth of Ayeshune.”
Something flinched in Errance’s face. Not on it, but inside it. Only the keenest of observers in the room might have noticed and no one did. But after a long moment, he nodded just once.
It was enough to break the spell. Tellie exhaled, the fleeing tension leaving her weak and tired, and she exchanged a weary smile with Kelm. Tryss did not smile, but the stiffness in her limbs relaxed and she looked down to nurse her wounds.
“Well, that’s that,” Coren exclaimed, with a brisk clap of his hands. “As soon as you’ve breathed enough, we must see to getting you to better lodgings for the night, and tomorrow we may discuss departure.”
“Do we have to leave soon?” Tellie said, only just restraining a whimper. “Can we wait until the day is cooler?”
“We could, of course, if you have an explanation for the owners upon their return.”
She sat bolt upright, shock tingling to the tips of her hair. “What! You mean this house doesn’t belong to you?”
“Indeed.”
“Oh, but what if somebody comes back right now?” Her head whirled as she imagined the door opening and the poor owners discovering them all in the living room.
“No fear of that,” Coren replied. “These are the quarters of the sale vendors. Their entire day revolves around their booth in the market, and they shall only return at night, if even then. If you notice that the room seems a bit bare, it is because they keep everything important with them. This part of the city is abandoned during the day, and I find it useful for my smuggling business. If the owners happened to return, I’ll simply tell them we won’t be staying long. I doubt it’d be the first time they’ve found someone in their house, and once they know we don’t plan to steal their goods or slit their throats, I can’t imagine they’ll have much to complain about. So a few hours, let’s say, to give you some rest and to give those pursuers of yours some time to make distance. I’ll go run and see if I can find a few shirts to replace the ones, er, lost. And then it’s off, my lovelies, off to my own humble home. Or one of them anyway.”
The few hours passed by far too swiftly. At some point, Tellie realized she must have dozed off, because she found herself curled up on the ground with no remembrance of doing so, and the lids of her eyes were heavy and hot. Her eyes stared level at sandaled feet, and she looked up to see Tryss kneeling by her side, shaking her shoulder gently.
“Come on then,” Tryss said, never sounding more worn. “The captain says it’s time to go.”
Grudgingly, she pushed to her feet and followed Tryss out, leaving behind the otherwise empty room. When Tellie stepped out of the house, the heat slammed into her body like a wall. She squinted past the glare of the sun to look at Kelm, who looked annoyingly refreshed, and then at Errance, who stood straight and silent without any acknowledgment of his wrapped torso, hidden underneath his new sky-blue shirt and leather jerkin. It was rather refreshing to see him in actual color, made him seem more real.
To enter the streets of Oolum was to again chance a meeting with their hunters. But Coren and Zizain led the way straight back into the thick of the city and the milling crowds who walked unaware of the dangerous game of life and death that danced around them. In the hottest hours of the day, the shopping decreased, and the people sought shelter in whatever shade they could find, drinking water and spirits, jabbering among themselves, haggling over final prices, catching a few winks of sleep. The lack of bustle seemed a bane to Tellie, making their passing a curious thing for onlookers to study.
Coren swaggered ahead of them, for all appearances on his own stroll, when he abruptly did an about-face, whirling his finger in the air. “That ol’ lizard, he cheated me of a few coins,” he said cheerfully. “Back we go! He isn’t going to get away with it.”
“What?” Tryss exclaimed.
He drew close, close enough for them all to hear him at a whisper. “It’s your faithful ‘shadows’ back again,” he said. “So turn around and go.”
Tellie’s heart thudded. This was impossible, really, the last straw! What evil fate drew these men after them, an invisible thread binding them together and refusing to break no matter how tangled it wove through the city?
But Coren did not seem to worry, he only continued to walk onward, whistling and hands stuffed in pockets.
Errance lengthened his stride, overtaking the captain. “What is your game here?” he growled.
“We can’t just constantly go running about the city pell-mell, can we?” Coren returned pleasantly. “That would get all the wrong sort of attention.”
“Is there a right sort?”
“Oh, indeed yes.”
“You betray us, you die. I am watching your every move.”
Coren chuckled. “Of course you are. I’m a watchable fellow! Follow in my footsteps, friend, and you’ll get somewhere.”
Zizain had taken the lead, and her hands twiddled with the purple sash around her waist and now it fell away into her hands with a swish. “Boys, how about a tune?” Her rich voice rang out loud in the stuffy air as she paused in front of a band of colorfully clad men lounging in the shade of a merchant’s stall. Various musical instruments lay in their laps: lutes, drums, cymbals. They straightened as soon as they saw Zizain, and brilliant smiles flashed across their dark faces. One immediately started tapping his drum and another joined in the beat with plucks of his lute.
It was almost like magic the way the teeming throng lulled in their activities and glanced the musicians’ way. Zizain swung her sash around her in an arc, moving those nearby back until there was a wide circle of space about her. Another lute joined in the jaunty tune, and as the third entered the chorus, Zizain swung into the music like she was an instrument herself.
Tellie’s mouth dropped open as she watched. She’d never seen anyone dance like Zizain did. The woman’s body was fluid, the limbs aflight in graceful bending and swirling, the scarf an extension of her body. The lutes thrummed, and the scarf flared in and out. Her feet moved in flawless precision, leading her across the ground like a bird in curving leaps and twirls. Her dance was the music incarnate, and Tellie had never heard a tune so fast, so full of sauce and vigor.
She turned to voice her admiration to Kelm, but when she saw how he stared at the dancer, eyes as wide as dinner plates and cheeks faintly pink, she lost half of her appreciation of the dance. He didn’t have to be that fascinated.
The crowd drew around Zizain like beasts at a feeding trough, squeezing shoulder to shoulder. In their eagerness, Tellie and the others were shoved to the front circle around the dancer, and Errance hunkered into himself as if he could go invisible, only glancing up occasionally to scowl at Coren. But the red-haired elf was wearing a smile as bright as the day, looking very satisfied with himself.
“What are we doing?” Errance hissed at him.
“We’re putting on a show, and the crowds love it.”
Realization, albeit annoyed, dawned in Errance’s eyes. In that moment, Tellie also understood. The people were so closely packed around them there was no way for the hunters to get through, much less see beyond.
As Zizain flashed by, her smile sparkled. She knew how to perform and clearly loved it, conspiratorial reasons aside. The people watching loved it too, clapping their hands to the beat, even chanting her name. Occasionally, a man would try to catch her scarf as it’d whisk past him, but with a quirk of her eyebrow, she’d flick it just out of r
each. Then with an impulsive grin, Zizain looped her scarf around Errance’s waist and tugged forward.
Errance startled, but remained rock-firm. The crowd hooted with laughter, only seeing that she teased a stiff and scowling young man to join her in the dance. Errance didn’t move, but his eyes, glaring out from behind his curtain of hair, smoldered like embers.
With a careless shrug, Zizain let go of one end of her sash and dashed it out towards another person—Coren.
And Coren took it.
The elf sprang into the dance, much to the approval of the crowd. He was every bit as mesmerizing as Zizain, and now the music rose to a level greater than before. They were not two dancers but one, entwining, parting, swirling into a blaze of color. The music sped faster and faster, and then with a roll of drums, it broke in a clash of cymbals.
The crowd roared their approval and surged forward. Tellie and the others might well have been lost in the wave, but Coren and Zizain moved fast and with a few steps they were right beside them so they would not get separated.
After initial acceptance of a job well done, the two smugglers started to shove through the stir, and nobody noticed that the sullen young man, young woman, and two children followed in their footsteps.
oOo
The king of Aselvia was laughing. “Oh Coren,” he said, shaking his head. “I never expected to see him back in the story again. He was such a strange one. We never did understand him.” His laughter died away as if caught by a breeze, and his expression turned pensive. “And yet…”
“And yet?” the One prodded gently.
“Yet he has accomplished more for your sake than many an elf more elegant and fair. Not until I came here did I realize how little we elves do for the world outside our home.”
“You were a worthy king of Aselvia.” He did not say it as if it were an excuse or an encouragement—merely as a fact.
“Of Aselvia, perhaps,” King Rendar said sadly. “But I might have done so much more.” He did not speak for several moments before a smile lifted his lips. “Perhaps Errance, who is seeing so much of Orim, will be more devoted to its cause when he is king.”
Moonscript (Kings of Aselvia Book 1) Page 22